Concert: Is it an instrument? Is it a sculpture? It is the Cristal! (March 2012)

The Cristal was invented by Bernard and François Baschet, two French artists as well as instrument makers, and the creators of sound sculptures. The Cristal was born from the desire to depart from the usual analysis of acoustics and invent a new system. Since 1977, Michel Deneuve has dedicated all his energy to giving it a future. He works at making the instrument known and he is the first musician to create an instrumental technique and develop a repertoire for a horizontal keyboard Cristal. Studying and refining a playing technique to open other horizons for the Cristal, Michel Deneuve continually pushes its possibilities, seeking to demonstrate the many facets of this young instrument. He develops for the Cristal a method based on that of classical keyboards (organ, piano, etc.) and bow instruments (violin, cello, etc.). This combined technique comes from the fact that the Cristal's keyboard consists of glass or crystal rods on which the fingers pass from one note to the next, as on any keyboard, and stroke each rod pulling and pushing, as a bow along strings. Today, interest in the Cristal continues to grow, as much on the part of audiences who are never indifferent to its magic, as on the part of musicians who can judge the instrument's true performance by listening to it and participating in concerts and recordings together with this instrument.

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